Page 84 of The Dragoneers of Longbourn and Pemberley
Their stuttered start to the race smashed them into the mat of fighting dragons in the air.
Valeraine had never seen so many dragons together. The pressing of wings and bodies, moving past each other only to be snagged in another fight.
They needed to get out of this morass, or everything was lost.
It might already be lost — might already be too late and too slim of chances to win. The start had been entirely botched, with Kesley trying to throw her off.
He had really stolen her dragon.
Valeraine wanted to snarl and attack everything, the nearest flying thing would do.
No, she didn’t. She wanted to determinedly finish the race (then maybe attack Kesley).Lelantoswanted to attack everything, and her mood was not helping his self control.
Valeraine breathed deeply, imagining flying fast, sprinting through clear skies. That was their goal. She tried to calm her racing heart as she pulled the reins up, looking for a break in the melee above her, one that they could squeeze through to touch the icy clouds.
Lelantos got the message, and moved his head to look above, instead of at the temptingly aggressive dragon beside them.
They saw an opening at the same time, and he was powering his wings and shooting toward it even as she was twitching the reins there.
As he flew upward with all of the air his wings could grab, a few things happened. They grazed dragons as they moved, knocking wingtips, jostled again and again. A few dragons swiped for Lelantos with tooth and claw, enough to draw blood but not enough to really slow him down.
Then, as they tilted back and back, aiming for the clouds, Valeraine started to shift off the saddle. Their ascent was too steep, too turbulent. She was falling off.
She wasn’t tethered in — and had no way to tie herself down.
She frantically reached for the pommel, gripping Lelantos with her knees.
She could do this. She had flown without a tether hundreds of times.
But the time that played again and again in her panicked mind was falling through the air, plummeting to her death. The terror of that moment possessed her.
No.
Valeraine pushed it away.
She wouldn’t give Lelantos panic right now.
She focused instead on the feel of the pommel in her hand, sturdy and grippable.
The chilly wind on her neck — thankfully, the mask protected her cheeks from the same fate.
There were the sounds of angry and hurt dragons all around them, but she imagined the quiet of the sky above them instead.
Lelantos flapped his wings, creating vortices of wind that played with her hair.
They squeezed through the fights — a tunnel of dragons.
Valeraine tried not to linger on the images of teeth and claws and blood. She had to stay focused for Lelantos’ sake.
It was the sky for them, her and her dragon. Her reliable, dependable dragon, who even when bothered could be steered away from a fight, whose huge wings could get them higher than these young upstarts.
Even out of the mass of fighting dragons over the starting field, the sky above was riddled with dragons. These, at least, weren’t all slamming into each other. They were trying to move in one direction, even if their progress was hampered by dodging around each other.
Valeraine would need to leverage Lelantos’ strengths. They would sail above all the mess. She pulled Lelantos’ attention far higher, urging him to continue climbing.
Going up might be slower, but she had to bet on the fact it would be safer, and that their dives would be fast enough to make up time. Nobody else was rising this high; it was a waste of energy for the typical dragon. For Lelantos, going higher wassimple with his vast wingspan, grown over centuries. It was even more of an advantage now with the skies being so crowded.
They reached clouds. It was difficult to say when the clouds started, but now they were certainly around them, misty and damp. The dragons below were obscured by the fog, giving a sense of artificial distance. Like they weren’t even in the race anymore, just flying for pleasure.
